Duct sealing is a means to stop air leakage and insulate the ductwork throughout your HVAC system. It’s necessary for more reasons than ensuring efficient heating and cooling. Other benefits include potential improvements in indoor air quality (IAQ). Trilogy AC provides ductwork and IAQ services in Houston that can yield these and other benefits. To learn how our NATE-certified technicians can help you, here’s a closer look into duct sealing and the reasons you need it.
How Is Duct Sealing Performed?
Air ducts should be professionally sealed. Poor sealing is just as ineffective as no sealing at all and may reduce efficiency further. Or, it can lead to indoor air quality issues or a faster deterioration of HVAC equipment.
To start, a professional performs an air duct test. It’s difficult to detect air leakage with a visual inspection alone unless your ductwork is severely damaged or disconnected. Air leaks are usually too small to see with the naked eye. They’re often caused by tiny tears, cracks in caulking, or small holes just beginning to form. Plus, most air ducts are inaccessible, so these issues are virtually undetectable.
Professionals use pressurization equipment, high-accuracy sensors, and sensitive computers to determine if duct sealing is needed. But to do a basic pressurization test, you can follow a few simple steps:
- Turn off any HVAC appliances
- Shut all doors, windows, and flues
- Turn on all exhaust fans in your home
- Light an incense stick and place it near vents that blow air indoors
If the smoke wavers or is blown toward the vent, there’s probably a leak in a duct near that vent.
As for how ducts are sealed, there are a few effective ways it is done, including:
- Duct Mastic: Applied with a putty knife or caulking gun, mastic is a soft, non-toxic, and flame-resistant material. It is a widely accepted duct-sealing method that can last up to 20 years.
- Spray Foam: Spray foam is also non-toxic. It’s also applied quickly. Once the technician accesses your ductwork, they coat each component from the outside, preventing any air leakage.
- Aeroseal: Sealing ducts from the outside is difficult in many circumstances. After sealing off the vents in your home, a technician hooks up a machine that pumps a polymer material into the duct system. Sealant particles then coat and fill any small holes or gaps.
Why You Need Duct Sealing
While AC and heating maintenance are recommended annually, having air ducts sealed is often overlooked. This is unfortunate because it can have many benefits. Any HVAC professional will admit that duct sealing can:
- Maintain Comfort: Air leakage and thermal inefficiencies (caused by heat escaping or entering air ducts) can cause your HVAC system to struggle. Without adequately sealed ducts, some rooms may be too chilly in winter or too hot in the summer. Duct sealing avoids this problem by contributing to more effective temperature distribution throughout your home.
- Protect Your HVAC System: Since leaky ducts can cause temperature fluctuations, they can force your heating or cooling system to run longer. Yet, it may still struggle to keep up with thermostat settings. Air leaks can also introduce contaminants that can clog or damage HVAC components. Therefore, duct sealing can have cost-saving benefits like the following:
- Fewer Repairs: Overworked or contaminated air conditioners and heaters break down more often and need more repairs, which can be expensive when larger components are involved.
- Increased Longevity: The more smoothly your HVAC unit works and the fewer major repairs it needs, the lower the risk of it failing prematurely. Duct sealing can help get more out of your investment.
- Conserve Energy: Lower energy costs is another way duct sealing can save you money. A loss of air, even through tiny leaks, can significantly reduce system efficiency. Therefore, addressing leaking ducts can cut your monthly energy bills. Since your HVAC system uses less electricity when ducts are properly sealed, the demand on the power grid is reduced, and your generator can last longer during a storm or other outage-related event.
- Preserve Valuable Items: When air ducts leak, the humidity in your home can increase and be difficult to control. Excess moisture can damage appliances, furniture, books, antiques, and building materials. Investing in duct sealing can create a stable environment in which you don’t find expensive items deteriorating even though they’re sitting there undisturbed.
- Protect Safety: Your home is where you spend most of your time. It’s a place of shelter and an escape from the outside world. Therefore, it’s essential to feel and be safe there. That can’t be achieved if certain issues that make you sick and uncomfortable aren’t addressed. Professional duct sealing is a service that can leave you safer by doing the following:
- Improve IAQ: Coughing, sneezing, and eye, nose, and throat irritation can be caused by air pollution in your home. So can headaches, nausea, and fatigue. These symptoms can make it hard to sleep or concentrate. Therefore, having your air ducts cleaned can improve your well-being.
- Keep Out Pests: Cockroaches, ants, beetles, flies, mice, rats, and other pests can enter through the smallest spaces. Once inside ducts, they can reach anywhere in your home. But even if you don’t see them, they can leave behind waste that releases pollution into the air. Duct sealing can prevent infestations and associated IAQ issues.
- Prevent Back-drafting: Noxious gasses vented by furnaces, water heaters, and clothes dryers normally exit your home. However, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and excess heat can be pulled into leaky air ducts and forced into your living space via back-drafting. This means that by sealing ducts, the air at home is a lot safer to breathe in.
When to Consider Duct Sealing
Sealing or resealing air ducts isn’t recommended regularly. Therefore, it’s easy to forget about. Your ductwork should need sealing only once every few years.
Professional service may apply to you in a few scenarios. The most common situations in which you should consider hiring a duct sealing professional include:
- People in your household have unusual allergies or respiratory symptoms while at home.
- You are replacing your HVAC system or recently had a new one installed.
- An HVAC maintenance professional has recommended sealing your ducts.
- It’s been years since your ducts were sealed, or they never were.
- You purchased a new home that includes an old HVAC system.
Call Trilogy AC to Schedule Ductwork Services
Our NATE-certified technicians work with high precision when providing ductwork installation and other services. Not only do we properly install ductwork. We also help keep it in top shape while addressing any IAQ concerns in your home. A free in-home evaluation allows us to determine how to proceed and make suggestions. To learn more or request an appointment, contact us or call (832) 720-6730 today.
